PodCasting

Interesting article on a new internet radio medium .. by Amy Gahran
Almost like Xerox being the english term for photocopying!

Timeshare, marketshare, walletshare

If you really think about it ... all my
1. Walletshare goes to Microsoft
2. Timeshare goes to google
3. Marketshare is pretty high for both these entities

I was doing a quick and dirty analysis of what I spend my internet time on ...
1. Google search - 10%
2. Email - 25%
3. Blogging - 5-10%
4. Reading Blogs . news- 30%
5. General useless browsing with no real purpose - 25%

So if I really think abt it - Google controls 50% of my online life.

Wow.

Google - All about chappati's

Well my shopping is restricted to buying chappatis (indian bread so to speak) and Nans (another indian bread ) from the local store. Google has a few billion more stashed away than I do, so they can go out and buy cool stuff like Keyhole
Lemme see now ...
1. I go search for buying chappati's (for the purpose of this example.. ) on google.
2. Then I go and compare chappati prices between stores on froogle
3. Then I can go to google answers and say 'how do I make my own chappatis' (mmh - shouldn't pay too much for getting that question answered - I could invest a few bucks and call my mother otherwise - Or use gmail and save even that couple of bucks)
4. I need to find the route to the Chappati store and see which side of the road it is on Route 46 - There comes in keyhole (again this is for the purposes of this example)
Or I could save money (on the answers and keyhole) and just type in my zip code and use the google local search results.

Wonder what google will add to its repertoire next ?

Talk abt version control

Yeah - Microsoft followed the non downward compatability approach for windows 2000 vis-a-vis 98 . ... but this guy has some other serious 'upgrade issues' too !

Pharma challenges facing the world

Larry's recent discussion on the Pharma industry and its need for differential pricing is also an interesting read. Jogged my memory on a lot of what we learnt in business school with regard to TRIPS. These concepts Larry discussed seem to be focused on the Afrian continent - A lot of what he said is quite true in the Indian context.

Some rights reserved

Been hooked onto Larry Lessig blog following with close attention Granny D's performance culminating in her highly successful debate .
What has also caught my attention is Larry's commitment to the creative commons cause. The more and more you think about it - the beauty, simplicity and elegance of the thought comes out. Kudo's to all the folks involved with the project and those good samaritans who support it.

Keeping on his focus of the evolving entertainment industry - Larry's discussions on the alternative compensation systems also are quite interesting.

Addendum

12/12 - Take a look at the UK version which I got from Larry's blog.

Vellam Venum

My two bits of malayalam (mean's 'want water')

Even in my life back in India have seen how critical water needs have become and how this could pose a significant hindrance to third world growth. In south states of karnataka and Tamil Nadu - there has been decades of disputes regarding cauvary. If population growth rates sustain at the current rate - Fresh Water supplies is going to the be #1 issue in most of Asia.

I would go as far as predicting ( I am not a pessimist - but there are significant risks of this occurance) that we may have future conflicts, international political incidents (wars, trade embargo's, United nations involvement) over water. This article from Rajesh's site written by worldchanging propounds this view and puts water concerns as the #1 concern along with AIDS.

Concentrated research should focus on low cost desalination tools and filtering and purification technology.

social software - how , when ,why, what?

Christopher Allen traces this - Interesting read..

Microsoft and APIs

Joel's site has a excellent analysis and critique on what Microsoft's real strangehold was - the Windows API and how this may no longer have the influence it had with the lack of backward compatibility ( via avalon, longhorn) and the shift of more and more developers towards thin client internet based technologies.
Excellent read.
Read joel's other stuff here

History of Blogging

Dave Sifry who also writes for technorati has an interesting piece on the history of blogging. He divides it into four parts with the first part available here

Dave interesting trace of blog history for the statistics oriented and also introduces a number of interesting terms used to describe the growth of blogs.

The biggest surprise for me was that sites like slashdot are competing in the same order of magnitude of NYtimes, BBC , CNN and Washington post ! . And I am sure with the growth rate of slashdot - they will be in a position to attack the bottom of this list.

Another ominous sign is the rise of corporate blogs. These blogs have a risk of proliferating partisan interests in both subtle and not so subtle ways.

Dave Rocks.

Nowhere to hide .. ?

Real interesting post on getting identified by google ! .This is esp true for south asian's with typically unique names !
I mean how many ppl will you have in the world with names like 'Premkumar Kuchi Vishu Sujana' (prem - apologies for using your example if you ever read this) or 'Vangipurappu Venkata Sai Laxman '
Then again on the subject of name changes, I have seen a guy who worked for a big investment bank on wall street change his name from 'Avinash' to 'avi' 'nash'.

Wonder which is more difficult to search ?

Feedreader rocks !

Finally got into setting up feed reader (www.feedreader.com) onto my machine. Just went on an adding spree of blogs ... my list has really really expanded - wondering how many of these blogs I will actually end up reading on the long run.
For people in NYC - www.curbed.com (http://www.curbed.com/index.rdf is the RSS feed) is quite an insightful place on renting and real estate . Right from billion dollar donald trump kinda stuff to the good ol' rent controlled / 'stabilized' (first time i heard that word was in NY ).
This was an interesting article I read - Not Moving on abt a guy who has been in the SAME apmt for 25 fr*** years !!

Tried to add www.chomsky.info to my list - didn't work - for some reason the rss feed refuses to acknowledge .. grrr... so need to go to his site to read the stuff. Next few days is gonna be spent filtering the wheat from ze Chaff so to speak, and getting on with a reduced set of blogs to catch up with every day.

Blog this , Blog that

Managed to wrangle out of doing too much work today. And got home and hit google for a heck of a lotta blog searches. Decided to stay on the tried and tested path of viewing the top 100-200 blogs (yeah - I Know - this was driven totally by laziness and the desire to meet a fellow blogger at some point and mention something which both of us have heard about with the faint hope that this would satisfy our individual egos about being clued into what blogging is all about)

Either ways - found some really interesting stuff in these 'top 100' - My favourites today were

1. http://collisiondetection.net/
2. Ventureblog.com
3. Rebeccablood.net
For the techie kinda stuff - one really awesome article which I read was Joel on Software Microsoft bashers will love it - and so will computer geeks - Joel makes some pretty hard hitting comments on the Windows development Strategy - and also an imp prediction for the future!

Numero Uno Post

So I finally get into the wonderful world of blogging.

I finally get a chance to see if I can put my penchant for

1. Talking
2. And talking
3. And Talking
4. And Talking
5. And Talking

down to a more papyrustic (ok - I made that word up - who knows , Websters is putting anything and everything into the dictionary nowadays. So I may actually get that one in) format.

Although I have spared a few trees by keeping my thoughts on an electronic medium.